Colonial Revival Vintage Kitchen

See a vintage kitchen with two pantries in this Colonial Revival home.

The stately façade was already familiar to them when Judi Heise and her son Brent viewed the 1908 house on the recommendation of their real-estate agent. Set high atop a knoll in Portland Heights, the house commands unimpeded vistas of the Cascade Range and the city of Portland. Its grand portico, formal window bays, and fully developed neoclassical detailing were intact. Inside, it was a different story. The house was kindly described as “a fixer-upper.”

The Colonial Revival house features a two-story portico and high hipped roof. Inspired by a vintage postcard, the Heises replanted 65 rose hedges.

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The Colonial Revival manse was designed and built by Clifton R. Lewthwaite for John and Clara Annand; Annand was a Portland City Council member and general manager of the Postal, Telegraph, and Cable Company. Following the death of subsequent owner Lee B. Loomis, a pioneer in the armored car industry who lived here from 1947 through 1949, the house suffered from a modernization.

The 12-arm Anglo–Dutch ball chandelier is an antique. Shellacked Douglas fir cabinets match the finish found in the house, including the salvaged door to the mudroom beside the baking center with its marble countertop. To move the heavy antique butcher block, the legs are removed and the top is rolled like a wheel.

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“Former owners had contractors remove many of the architectural details,” recalls Brent, who discovered vestiges of a significant slash pile in the basement. The Art Deco makeover had dispensed with Povey Bros. stained-glass windows, a dramatic staircase, classical fireplace mantels, and the old kitchen. Starting in 1994 and for 10 long years, Judi and Brent worked to restore the house.

The coved ceiling (formerly hidden) curves sensuously into the bracketed shelf over the La Cornue hood. Stainless steel pots hang from a rack installed on the English subway tile, which has a white clay base. A stainless steel, glass-front Sub-Zero refrigerator stands between the breakfast room (unseen to the left) and the maid’s pantry at right.

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Judi acted as general contractor, Brent as site supervisor. The basement pile—a jigsaw puzzle of molding pieces, mantels, balusters, and newels—launched an exhaustive search. They tracked down owners of other Lewthwaite-designed houses, attended Webfooters postcard club meetings, haunted the Multnomah County Library, and deciphered architectural footprints revealed during restoration. Over the years, too, neighbors returned pieces they’d bought when the house was remodeled. The effort was huge. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

The restored breakfast room adjacent to the kitchen features a triptych of leaded windows like those seen in a period photo of the house. 

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Work on the kitchen was postponed until after all the structural repairs were complete. “We didn’t want work in adjoining rooms to damage the plaster and tile we intended to restore in the kitchen,” Brent explains.

Designed as a hub with six different points of entry, the kitchen was shrouded in layers of 1950s linoleum on countertops and floors, alongside dilapidated aqua appliances. The Heises had to take the room down to the studs. In the process they found paint outlines on plaster walls that indicated where the original site-built cabinets had been, along with plumbing indicating the location of the sink in the maid’s pantry. They’d also recovered some trim that had been in the kitchen.

The butler’s pantry has a six-arm Anglo–Dutch brass chandelier; owner Judi Heise made the painted floorcloth to protect the wood floor. 

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A ca. 1908 postcard of the west façade revealed the original placement of windows in the maid’s pantry and adjoining breakfast room, and suggested that a wall had been removed. The butler’s pantry retained original cabinets (albeit with 1950s louvered door fronts painted chartreuse). These became the model for replacement cabinets built by a master craftsman for the maid’s pantry. All have been finished in the orange shellac favored by Lewthwaite, the builder. 

The family of former owner David Eccles confirmed the original location of the stove. Now filling the spot is a Le Chateau range and hood, the focal point of the room. The stove was made by La Cornue, a Paris company founded the same year this house was built. Brent designed the pretty bracketed shelf over the hood, which follows the lines of the coved ceiling that was uncovered during the restoration.

Blue-and-white china sits on a wide drainboard made from a church pew. 

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The historical subway tile was made by the English company Candy Tile; no longer in production, tiles were found stockpiled in various distributor locations. It is punctuated by nine antique Art Nouveau tiles from Bernadette Breu Antiques. The flooring is composed of traditional 1″ hexagonal tiles. A salvaged 5′-long American Standard porcelain-over-cast-iron sink on legs runs the length of the restored windows. Walls are painted to match original plaster fragments.

 The maid’s pantry, including original cabinets, has been restored beautifully. David Schlicker re-created the stained-glass window. 

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Brent Heise says that his mother’s reward was “creating such a homey place, after so many years of living in a construction zone.”

For Brent, the greatest gift from the restoration started in the dining room, with the discovery of a Venetian-style mural. He searched for a painting conservator and finally found Elzbieta Osiak, who’d trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. When her remarkable restoration was complete, she and Brent married. 

Resources

stove ‘Le Chateau’ by French manufacturer founded 1912 la cornue: lacornue.com
subway tile by British company Candy Tile, no longer produced. In U.S., contact Tile Source Inc.
hardware Rejuvenation and Hippo Hardware.com, Portland
german silver sink from Salvage One, Chicago 
antique tiles Bernadette Breu Antiques, Portland 
stained glass David Schlicker, Portland
paint conservation Elzbieta Osiak-Heise, Portland

The antique sink of German silver (a copper–nickel–zinc alloy) has dents and patina.

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Tags: butler's pantry OHI December 2012 Vintage Kitchen

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